The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2)(2)

“Too little,” Genevieve said calmly, “and nobody will know what you have to offer. Geraldine and I—well, we have only a mere ten thousand apiece, so our gowns must reflect that.”

Geraldine gripped her fan. “Alas,” she intoned.

“But you—Miss Fairfield, you have a dowry of one hundred thousand pounds. You have to make sure that people know it. Nothing says wealth like lace.”

“And nothing says lace like…more lace,” Geraldine added.

They exchanged another set of looks.

Jane smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what I would do without the two of you. You’ve been so good to me, tutoring me in all things. I have no notion of what’s fashionable, nor of what message my clothing sends. Without you to guide me, who knows how I might blunder?”

Mrs. Sandeston made a choking noise in her throat, but said nothing more.

One hundred thousand pounds. One of the reasons Jane was here, watching these lovely, perfect women exchange wicked smiles that they didn’t think Jane could understand. They leaned toward one another and whispered—mouths hidden demurely behind fans—and then, glancing her way, let out a collective giggle. They thought her a complete buffoon, devoid of taste and sense and reason.

It didn’t hurt, not one bit.

It didn’t hurt to know that they called her friend to her face and sought to expose her foolishness to everyone they saw. It didn’t hurt that they egged her on to more—more lace, more jewels, more beads—simply so they might fuel their amusement. It didn’t hurt that the entire population of Cambridge laughed at her.

It couldn’t hurt. After all, Jane had chosen this for herself.

She smiled at them as if their giggles were the sincerest token of friendship. “The Maltese it is.”

One hundred thousand pounds. There were more crushing burdens than the weight of one hundred thousand pounds.

“You’ll want to be wearing that gown Wednesday next,” Geraldine suggested. “You’ve been invited to the Marquess of Bradenton’s dinner party, have you not? We insisted.” Those fans worked their way up and down, up and down.

Jane smiled. “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it, not for the world.”

“There will be a new fellow there. A duke’s son. Born on the other side of the blanket, unfortunately—but acknowledged nonetheless. Almost as good as the real thing.”

Damn. Jane hated meeting new men, and a duke’s bastard sounded like the most dangerous kind of all. He would have a high opinion of himself and a low opinion of his pocketbook. It was precisely that sort of man who would see Jane’s one hundred thousand pounds and decide that he might be able to overlook the lace dripping off her. That kind of man would overlook a great many defects if it would put her dowry in his bank account.

“Oh?” she said noncommittally.

“Mr. Oliver Marshall,” Genevieve said. “I saw him on the street. He doesn’t—”

Her sister gave her a gentle nudge, and Genevieve cleared her throat.

“I mean, he looks quite elegant. His spectacles are very distinguished. And his hair is quite…bright and…coppery.”

Jane could just imagine this specimen of thwarted dukehood in her mind’s eye. He would be paunchy. He would wear ridiculous waistcoats, and he’d have a fob watch that he checked incessantly. He’d be proud of his prerogatives and bitter of a world that had led him to be born outside of wedlock.

“He would be utterly perfect for you, Jane,” Geraldine said. “Of course, with our lesser dowries, he would find us quite…uninteresting.”

Jane made herself smile. “I don’t know what I would do without you two,” she said, quite sincerely. “If I didn’t have you to look out for me, why, I might…”

If she didn’t have them trying to set her up as a laughingstock, she might one day—despite her best efforts—manage to impress a man. And that would be a disaster.

“I feel that you two are like my sisters, given the care you take for me,” she said. Maybe like stepsisters in a blood-curdling fairy tale.

“We feel the same,” Geraldine smiled at her. “As if you were our sister.”

There were almost as many smiles in that room as there was lace on her gown. Jane offered up a silent apology for her lie.

These women were nothing like her sister. To say as much was to insult the name of sisterhood, and if anything was sacred to Jane, it was that. She had a sister—a sister she would do anything for. For Emily, she would lie, cheat, buy a dress with four different kinds of lace…

One hundred thousand pounds was not much of a burden to carry. But if a young lady wanted to remain unmarried—if she needed to stay with her sister until said sister was of age and could leave their guardian’s home—that same number became an impossibility.

Almost as impossible as four hundred and eighty—the number of days that Jane had to stay unmarried.

Four hundred and eighty days until her sister attained her majority. In four hundred and eighty days, her sister could leave their guardian, and Jane—Jane who was allowed to stay in the household on the condition that she marry the first eligible man who offered—would be able to dispense with all this pretending. She and Emily would finally be free.

Jane would smile, wear ells of lace, and call Napoleon Bonaparte himself her sister if it would keep Emily safe.